


all tangled up

by caesarions



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Awkward Crush, F/M, Feelings Realization, Fluff and Humor, Hair Braiding, Implied Sexual Content, Jealousy, M/M, Pining, Unresolved Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2020-03-20 15:50:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18995746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caesarions/pseuds/caesarions
Summary: When Zevran does not show for their latest mission, instead of listening to his friends flirt, Alistair assigns himself to the job of entering the assassin's tent. A dangerous prospect, at any rate, especially when a hairy situation threatens to confuse Alistair's feelings further.





	all tangled up

**Author's Note:**

> a silly drabble entirely inspired by my friend @cimabuoy on twitter:
> 
> "i figured out the logistics of how zevran must do his braids but it made me so mad that now i have to go sit down. like to add insult to the injury of having two different side braids mesh into one, they’re also all fishtails. or at least look like fishtails. this man has the thickest hair in all of thedas somehow"

“Just where _is_ the bastard?”

Alistair’s fellow Warden tapped the camp entrance ground with foot, quick enough to send up little dust clouds around Isenam that the mabari began to chase. Alistair watched as Davhalla stuck his nose in one and sneezed. “I told Zevran the four of us were going back into Denerim moons ago, it feels like.”

“Now, love, lateness is no excuse for name-calling,” Leliana tut-tutted, patting Isenam’s arm. If Alistair had trouble understanding why they could be so easy with each other before, the pink dawn light softening their mischievous smiles made it clear.

Alistair pouted and crouched to pet Davhalla.

The Dalish elf said with amusement, “We’ve called each other much worse, believe you me.”

“And all over me,” Leliana laughed like a songbird. She then offered, “Perhaps you were simply not loud enough to rouse Zev.”

“That feels like a dig on me sexually, though I’m not sure about what.” Isenam crossed his arms. “And you say that as if assassins don’t sleep with one eye open, if at all.”

Morrigan spoke for the first time, either equally as unnerved by their display or unable to pass up another dig. Alistair could never make heads or tails of her expression, happy or sad, if the witch felt any difference at all. “Well, ‘tis true that he is not a very good one.”

Despite himself, Alistair chuckled with the rest of them.

“Bards are not so different in style, and I sleep quite soundly,” Leliana countered.

“Last night?” Isenam shot up onto his tiptoes, though he still had to stare up at her. The eagerness in his face became more evident from Alistair’s position on the ground. Sweating, he began to pet Davhalla faster.

“Yes, especially so last night.” Stroking Isenam’s golden braid to placate him, Leliana gave a coy smile. She immediately removed her hand. “Because we removed Marjolaine from my life.”

That was an oddly poetic way to say _killed_ , Alistair thought.

Isenam deflated, a pout similar to Alistair’s tugging at his thin lips. “Really? Not from anything else?”

“What else was there to tire me out so, love?”

“Oh, I’m _sorry_!” Isenam shoved his hands on his hips, unconvincingly angry, especially when Leliana laughed and patted the elf’s cheeks. Alistair could feel his own heating up in a volatile mix of embarrassment and longing.

“‘Tis possible that Alistair would like to check on the Crow.”

When he blinked away the surprise, he found Morrigan staring down with a finally readable expression, a smirk filled to the brim with the worst kind of knowledge.

“I was just going to say that!” Alistair insisted obstinately. He jumped to his feet as taut as Leliana’s bowstring. “Took the words right out of my mouth. Well, I shouldn’t say that—probably a spell for that, somehow. Anyway.”

Leliana and Isenam were too busy cooing over each other to notice him stalk away in awkward jerks, as if half of his body was frozen. Only Davhalla whined at the loss of contact. Alistair heard Morrigan scoff, “Do not look to me, filthy mongrel.” It could have been for him or the dog. 

The walk to the center of camp took much less time than Alistair would have liked. He gave a polite nod to Wynne, who stood nearby, clearing the ashen remnants of last night’s fire. When she raised her eyebrows in a question, Alistair ducked inside Zevran’s tent faster.

That was equally as much of a mistake. When Alistair ceased staring mournfully at the tent flaps closing behind him, he found Zevran sitting cross-legged on his bedroll. His armor laid out beside him, the rogue wore only smalls and a white tunic, still untied about the neck.

Worst of all, only one side of his hair was braided, the end pinched between his fingers. The other half of Zevran’s flaxen tresses fell freely to hug his face—down-soft cheeks, but a tapered jaw. Alistair had the sinking realization that he had never seen it like this before.

And that he wanted to again.

Zevran looked up and greeted him easily, even in a state of undress. “Alistair, my friend! What can I do for you this fine morning?”

“Er— nothing.” Alistair considered darting back out immediately. “Not for me, anyway. We’re leaving.”

“Without _me_? I expected you, of all people, to defend my honor,” the assassin said, terribly woebegone.

“No! That’s what I’m here for. To ask why you’re late.” Mumbling, Alistair spared a glance for his armor on the floor. “And getting later by the minute, it seems.”

“A most handsome courier, no? Perhaps our Warden sends you to receive sweeter returns.” He titled his head, and Alistair followed the strands moving to reveal Zevran’s eye gleaming with mirth. “It is with a heavy heart that I must admit that my hairstyle is not at all natural or effortless. As a fellow man of taste—in braids at least, not that heavy, lime green armor of his—Isenam should understand.”

Struck dumb, Alistair crossed his arms. “Are you serious?”

“Deadly!” Zevran pouted. “Would you rather I left it down?”

Maker, yes. “No.”

“Exactly, because it is quite impractical. It could fall in my eyes while fighting, making me miss a foe trying to stab your tender flesh,” he said with a pointed look at Alistair. “How could I live with myself?”

“How romantic,” the warrior quipped without thinking.

“Quite!” Alistair loved and loathed the smile that came in equal parts. “More realistically, it just an attractant for dirt and dried blood.”

Moving to sit on the ground as well, Alistair said, “But you leave the front pieces out.”

“For style, no?”

“...Why are you taking so long?” Alistair gave a beleaguered sigh and gave up simultaneously.

“Oh, it took me much longer than normal to detangle it this morning. I must have slept like a madman in love.” When Alistair leaned away at that, Zevran only laughed, as clear and slow as bells in honey. “But now, it is because you are currently occupying my mouth.”

Alistair almost fell flat on the floor. “Excuse me?”

“You may rectify your sins by holding up this mirror for me,” Zevran continued without fanfare. “After all, I prefer for my neck to ache from more pleasurable pursuits.”

“I have—” What else did he have? Isenam had sent him on this mission exactly. Well, Morrigan. No—himself. All of his excuses sounded lame to his own untrained ears, let alone an assassin’s. “...Fine.”

Alistair picked up the gilded mirror on Zevran’s bedroll that the elf had been bent over. Tilting it towards him, Zevran gave an all-too chipper, “Thank you, my friend!” Then, he set to work.

He had not lied—he could only start the second braid after he held the first between his lips. Alistair assumed the silence would be preferable—it was what he said he always _wanted_ out of Zevran—but, as always, he was proven wrong.

There was nothing else to focus on, then. Even the other party members’ voices, who usually pierced through their threadbare tents, were muffled as Alistair stared. At what? At everything—

Zevran’s hands were deft as he worked, fingers disappearing into a steady stream of caramel, gold rings flashing in whatever rose dawn light made its way between the tent flaps. The end of his first braid was still being held together between his lips, even if they formed two plush pillows more than a vice grip. It was not often that Alistair was jealous of inanimate objects, nor had they been hair. Zevran must have had so much of it, for the fishtail braids were thick. Alistair wanted to test, just how much—

When his reflection began to shake, Zevran looked up—half a challenge, half a question.

Turning redder than the sky, Alistair averted his gaze to anywhere in the tent but Zevran. His armor, his chest, his mirror—

 _His_ mirror?

“Wait, wait, wait. Isn’t this Morrigan’s?” Alistair whirled it around to the decorated golden back.

Zevran smiled knowingly. He had finished just in time, so he spit the other braid out and formed a tight crown by braiding them together at the very back of his head. “Why, I simply thought I might borrow it,” he said while tying the one larger braid off with a leather cord.

“You’re stealing from a woods witch?” Alistair asked incredulously. “Don’t you have—oh, I don’t know—a fear of _death_?”

“In this line of work? Hardly!” Taking the mirror for himself, Zevran inspected his craftsmanship. “I have always feared little and less. Not even rejection, apparently.”

There existed an pregnant beat of silence when Alistair did not respond.

Zevran only turned around. “How does the back look? Even?”

“...Just peachy,” Alistair mumbled, even after a long glance at the slope of Zevran’s shoulder under the thin, white fabric. He turned the other way and stumbled out of the tent.

And so he did the rest of the camp, too. By the time he had tripped himself all the way back to the entrance, Isenam and Leliana were still pressed nose-to-nose in a faux lovers’ quarrel, and Davhalla still sniffed around Morrigan’s hand as she looked exhausted with her own resignation.

“He’s coming,” Alistair promised to the group, out of breath for no good reason at all. “And I’m going. To the Chantry, I mean.”

Isenam blinked out of his reverie with Leliana. “But I thought we hated the Chantry together.”

“The Denerim chapter was closed yesterday, was it not?” the bard raised an eyebrow.

“Then I’ll go—ahead. The woods.” The Warden threw his arms up in the air. As he stalked up the road, he mumbled, “Anywhere quiet at all.”

Even Morrigan made a noise of surprise, bringing Alistair a strange sense of satisfaction. She hesitated to give another smart comment.

Instead, he heard Isenam whisper loudly, “Is now a bad time to tell him that we’re going to the Pearl?”


End file.
